Episode 139: Wolfie, and a potting shed soundscape

Inside the potting shed. Photograph: Jane Perrone.

Transcript

Episode 139

[music]

Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast episode 139, I'm your host, Jane Perrone and I've got a confession! This week's show is not quite what it was going to be. I was planning to do Diva Week this week, in which I was putting out short episodes over five days about different diva plants. But, life being life, it's taken a little longer than expected to pull that together, so no divas this week apart from me, of course! So, instead, what have you got? This week's show is a bit of rag tag and bobtail affair. I have dug out a mini episode that I did a while back but never put out, about Wolfie. I'm just turning to look at the dog, he's very excited, he's sparked out on the sofa. There's also a soundscape from my shed and I answer a question about a Dendrobium orchid. And, there's more. There's even more! We hear from listener Gabby.

[music]

Jane: A few thank yous to kick off with. JayHannah and Jonathan have both donated via ko-fi.com, Claire gave a donation via PayPal and Olivia, Alison and Eva have all become Patreon subscribers. Thank you to all of you for supporting On The Ledge. You can find out how to donate in various ways to the show via the show notes, or leave me a review. I recently realised you can't leave reviews on Spotify, so if you listen to the podcast on Spotify, that's absolutely fine, I use Spotify myself, it's grand, but you can't leave a review, which is a shame, so maybe, I don't know, shout over the garden fence to your neighbour about On The Ledge, or phone a friend and tell them about the show. I'm sure you can find some way of supporting the show without having to go through the admittedly tortuous process of leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

Advance warning that it is Garden Day on Sunday. I'm not a great proponent of "days", as it were. World Naked Gardening Day? I put a comment on Instagram saying the closest I'm going to get to World Naked Gardening Day is not wearing a brooch on Instagram because, quite frankly, I don't really get World Naked Gardening Day. No shade if you're into it, it just doesn't really do it for me! Anyway, but Garden Day is something I can get behind. So, this is a day, this coming Sunday, 10 May 2020, which is just celebrating the wonderful effect of gardens, and that can be indoor or outdoor I should emphasise, on our good selves. You can watch various videos by gardening luminaries of various kinds and so on. The main website is GardenDay.co.uk so do go and check that out. There's also lots going on on social media. If you look up the hashtag GardenDayUK you will find all of that. So, what better than celebrating our gardens this bank holiday weekend?

Anyone who has been listening to On The Ledge for any stretch of time will be aware of my podcast mascot, Wolfie Perrone. This is my dog and he is much loved by the family and also by lots of other people who love to give him cuddles when we're walking down the street. Although right now, cuddles are banned, apart from one chap who just pounced on him and gave him a cuddle the other day. At the moment, during lockdown, we're trying to resist strangers' temptations to come and give him a cuddle but he is a very adorable dog and he is a wonderful companion and very good for a podcast because he's very quiet, despite me complaining about his collar jingling sometimes. Actually he's a very quiet dog and in fact he's lying on the sofa, his eyes half-closed in his normal position to be quite honest: he's a bit of a couch potato! So, I've had lots of requests for more information about Wolfie, so this next segment is a chat I did, it must be a while ago, because in this I say Wolfie is eight, he's actually nine now. Nevertheless, other than his age, it's still true. In this, I discuss how we got him, what he is - he's a dog, obviously, but he's a specific kind of dog etc. If you are not interested in finding out about Wolfie, then if you fast forward about eight minutes you will get to the next bit of talk about plants, so you can bypass the dog chat quite easily in that way. So without any further ado, let's talk about Wolfie, aka Wolfbag, the Loop Sportif, Snap, Barkus, Woofernickum, the Wolfmeister General. He has many nicknames! Anyway, let's get going and talk about Wolfie.

[music]

Jane: If you're sticking around, I guess you want to hear all about Wolfie. Well, he is an eight-year-old dog, he's a Lurcher, if you've never come across Lurchers before, let me explain. They're a cross between a long dog, such as a greyhound or a whippet or a Saluki, and either a Terrier or a Collie. That means you can get lots and lots of combinations, so you might get a big lurcher, which might be a cross between a Greyhound and a Collie, and you get teeny tiny Lurchers, which is like Wolfie's kind of Lurcher, which is a cross between a Bedlington Terrier and a Whippet. Wolfie is predominantly - this is only guess-work because we didn't have him as a puppy - but we think he is a cross between a Bedlington Terrier and a Whippet. Probably more Whippet than Bedlington and he's probably got some greyhound in there, thrown in for good luck because he is that bit bigger than a lot of the Bedlington Whippets that you see out there.

How do you know a Bedlington Whippet? They're shaggy, furry hounds with a Whippety shape. Not always, but often, they are a steel grey colour, what's known as 'blue' in the dog world, with white tips on their feet and on their chest but this doesn't have to be that way. There are lots of other colour combinations you can get. If you don't know what a Bedlington Terrier looks like, imagine a lamb when they're clipped for showing, they do look like lambs, with a bulgy, curly bit on top of their head. Bedlington Terriers were trained as hunting dogs here and they're tough little things. Whippets, on the other hand, are bred for speed, but both were dogs that worked catching rabbits and rats and things like that. The Bedlington Whippet, and indeed the Lurcher more generally, is often associated with poachers because they were popular dogs for that line of work, if you can call it work. I don't do any hunting with Wolfie; he has never been trained to hunt. While he has a natural instinct to run after small moving things, he doesn't really have any killer instinct whatsoever and now he's that bit older he's not really interested in chasing them either, so that's great. Sometimes these dogs are known as 100mph couch potatoes because they are either asleep on your sofa or running incredibly fast and yes, Wolfie, in his day, could run incredibly fast. Unfortunately, about eighteen months ago, he slipped a disc which is a pretty serious injury. He tripped over a ball while he was chasing after it and lost the use of his back legs for a little bit. Then ensued some very expensive treatment at a specialist vets, an MRI scan and lots of physio and now he's pretty much 90% back to full health.

What does Wolfie like doing? Laying in a soft comfortable place. He is not a stoic Labrador character. He will not sit on a hard floor unless he absolutely has to, or unless it's very warm with sunshine falling on him. He wants a comfortable sofa, so he gets the run of the sofas in this house. Sometimes we're squashed in the corner and Wolfie is stretched out. Where did Wolfie come from? He wasn't an abuse case, although he was a rehoming case. So he came from a lady in Norfolk who specialises in rehoming and rescuing Lurchers and I was looking for him for quite a long time before I found him because I wanted a shaggy Lurcher, as opposed to a smooth one. When I was growing up as a child we had Irish Terriers, which are those ginger Terriers which have absolutely gorgeous beards and wiry fur and I wanted the look of that dog without the hard work of the coat and that is what I got with Wolfie. When we first found Wolfie, four years ago, he was named Taz and we decided to rename him Wolfie. We had to go through a home check and then we went to pick him up one day and he has become a really firm part of our family. He's a wonderfully affectionate dog; he just loves a cuddle, he thinks everyone wants to cuddle him and everyone loves him. We've managed to mostly train him out of jumping up and licking people's faces, but he does love to like a toddler's face if he gets the chance. He doesn't bother at all about my houseplants. He's completely uninterested in them, which is great. The only time he'll be concerned is if one falls over or I knock one over. That's the extent of his interest in houseplants. He is the ideal companion for a podcast about houseplants.

There is one other dog in my life, I should mention. I volunteer for a charity in the UK called the Cinnamon Trust and this is a charity that pairs up elderly people and the terminally ill with people who can walk and look after their dogs on a foster basis while they're in the hospital having treatment or in a hospice. I walk a little Westie, that's a West Highland White Terrier, called Bonnie. I've started doing it for the last few weeks because her owner has broken her hip. Bonnie is a totally different character to Wolfie. She's small, she's lively, she can run very fast, probably not as a fast as Wolfie and she just loves life and she's a real little firecracker and tremendous fun to walk. I've been enjoying walking her once a week. Before that, I used to walk a blonde German Shepherd called Brie. I'm not sure if she was named after the cheese, totally different kettle of fish! Big, gorgeous dog with loads of shaggy, blonde hair. Amazing dog - a lot of hair though! I wouldn't have fancied having to groom her because there were just enormous amounts of hair everywhere, but a wonderful dog and totally different from my Wolfie, in that German Shepherds are generally quite vocal dogs, so when I used to go and pick her up and take her for a walk, she would be howling and barking and going nuts, whereas Wolfie, he literally almost never barks. The only thing he would bark at is a cat on the conservatory roof or, very occasionally, he'll tell another dog off by barking at it, but that's about it! He is almost completely silent! That's actually quite a nice quality for a dog.

Those are the dogs in my life. Oh, there are actually more! My parents have a Doberman called Heidi, who is a rescue dog. She came from a puppy farm where she was used for breeding and she is four years old and I haven't met her yet because my parents don't live in the same country as me but she's been fun, they've had to teach her everything about living in a house because she has not been used to any of the home comforts. So, walking on a lead, house training, they've had to do, but they're pretty experienced dog owners so they have done that and she is absolutely gorgeous, apparently, and very much in love with my dad. They're happy with their dog! My sister has a dog called Gilbert who is a - is he a Cavapoo? No - he's one of those poo dogs, I can't remember which type! Cockapoo, maybe, and he is a little, steel-grey bundle of energy, who she rehomed from an elderly lady but he has got bags of life in him even though he's 10 or 11. I haven't met Gilbert yet, but I'm hoping to meet him in the future. So those are the dogs in my life and if you want to tell me about the dogs in your life, then please pop over to the Facebook group Houseplant Fans of On The Ledge and in that group we have a thread going, where you can share your dogs and I'll make sure that's at the top of the feed just so you can add your pets. I know at least one of you has a dog called Wolfie - Ohio Tropics has another Wolfie! So, if you've got a Wolfie in your life, or any other dog, I would love to hear about it in the Facebook group. If I haven't answered any of your questions about Wolfie, drop me a line and I'd be happy to do so and I'll stick a little post about Wolfie on my website JanePerrone.com with some pictures -- enjoy!

[music]

Jane: That's enough canine chat! It's time for Meet the Listener. This week, we're meeting Gabby from New York.

Gabby: Hey Jane, thanks so much for having me on to respond to the listener questions.

Jane: Question one - There's a fire and all your plants are about to burn. Which one do you grab as you escape?

Gabby: If there was a fire the plant that I'd probably grab first would be my Pink Princess Philodendron. It was a bit of a splurge in these times of the Corona pandemic, so that would be the first one to get out of the house safely.

Jane: Question two - What is your favourite episode of On The Ledge?

Gabby: My favourite episode would be the one on the Coleus plant. It's something I've been growing for the past two or three summers now, on my porch, and what were once small little baby plants are now giant monsters that are growing in my plant pots.

Jane: Question three - Which Latin name do you say to impress people?

Gabby: The Latin name I say to impress people would be probably Monstera adansonii.

Jane: Question four - Crassulacean acid metabolism, or guttation?

Gabby: I'm a big fan of guttation. There's something thrilling about seeing those little wet droplets on the end of leaves.

Jane: Question five - Would you rather spend £200 on a variegated Monstera, or £200 on 20 interesting cacti?

Gabby: In terms of what I would spend £200 on, I'd have to go with the variegated Monstera.

[music]

Jane: Thanks to Gabby for contributing to Meet the Listener. If you want to get involved, drop a line to OnTheLedgepodcast@gmail.com and we'll drop over instructions - it's very straightforward. Now it's time for Question of the Week. This comes from Giskin, who has an issue with a Dendrobium Orchid. Giskin writes: "I got it a couple of years ago and it's been a joy, flowering profusely for the first eighteen months. It's also doubled in size. When it arrived, it had quite a few stumps, which made me think it'd been divided, or cut back. With my other orchids, I know to prune flowering stems back to the next node after flowering but I wondered whether my Dendro needed something similar and should I be dividing those rooting branchlets at the base?"

I am no Dendrobium expert so I called on somebody who is, to answer this question. Dr Manos Kanellos is the co-author of the book 'Growing Orchids at Home', along with another orchid expert, Peter White, so he was just the person we needed to speak to. Thankfully, Manos was on hand to answer all Giskin's Dendrobium queries and then some!

Manos: I can see three questions here. Basically, what we're looking at is a Dendrobium nobile , which is native to South East Asia and it is often referred as a cool-growing Dendrobium, which doesn't do it justice in that it doesn't really need cool temperatures. It's a special orchid because it is one of the few commonly-sold orchids that has a distinct growing and rest phase. Its growing phase starts when you see buds on the new canes and the rest phase starts when the new canes have reached almost the height of the old canes. They are best both late Spring, so about now, so rest and growing phase coincides with the year. I can see three questions that need to be answered from that paragraph. The first question is what were these stumps? These stumps are in fact cut-off canes. The plant didn't need or want, let's say, these canes cut off, but the grower did cut them off so the plant looks prettier for somebody to buy it. The second question, do you need to cut off these canes at the end of the flowering? No, they are used as reservoirs for nutrients and water and they feed the new canes. When the plant doesn't need these old canes, they will become wrinkly and yellow and then you can cut them off. It's not like Phalaenopsis which is unique in that it can re-flower on the same stem. This orchid, it flowers on the same stem, normally it would then stop and move to the new canes but, as I say, you do not cut the old cane.

Jane: I think this is where I've fallen down in with this plant in the past, I, in my ignorance of this plant, have cut off those stems before they've gone completely yellow and wrinkly and as a result I've thought I was doing the right thing but obviously I wasn't and you end up with an unbalanced ugly-looking plant as well.

Manos: The grower can do this because in the nursery, chances are he's doing it just before he sells the plant, but he's doing it because in the greenhouse, you have perfect conditions, whereas at home the plant is not in ideal conditions most of the time. So, taking away its buffer, its reservoir of nutrients and water, it makes it much more difficult for it to thrive. So it's best left on the plant until the plant tells you it doesn't need them.

Jane: This is why, if you've grown a few Phalaenopsis orchids, you have to understand that the Dendrobiums are a bit different because their flowering style is quite different. They don't flower in the same way, do they? They're flowering from the side of the stem, with a very short flowering stem, as opposed to that long one you get with Phalaenopsis.

Manos: The Phalaenopsis is different in two or three ways from other orchids and as soon as you realise that most of the other orchids have two or three significant but only a few differences, then they're very easy to grow. The key for this one is that it has a rest and a growing period. During its rest, you keep it in cool, bright, dry, conditions. During its growing phase, you treat it like a normal orchid. That's the key to it. If you do this, it'll thrive. It's not a difficult orchid to grow at home. The third question, should I be dividing the branchlets at the bottom? That's a difficult one to answer. Basically the answer is yes and no. This orchid, if it's not given a proper rest period, can develop, not branchlets, they're called keiki - a new plantlet on the canes. If it does, so these are best sprayed with some water or misted and when they have enough food for four or five a couple of inches in length it either can then be snapped off and then all put together in a small pot and you have a new plant. In this case, in this picture, this is not a branchlet. It doesn't look to me like a branchlet, it just looks like a new cane. The orchid looks like it could do with repotting and now is the right time to repot it, all the way until the end of June. So it is best to repot it. When you repot it, it's good to take a little bit of bark from the bottom of the pot and put the orchid into its new pot which should only be slightly bigger, a little bit deeper so these roots go into the bark. So if you really, really want it, you could take that bit off, but it's risky and you have to ask why. The best thing is to be left with the plant so you end up with a bigger, stronger, thriving plant.

Jane: What is the best mix to use with the Dendrobium? Is it just like the Phalaenopsis a classic orchid bark?

Manos: Bark, just simply bark. You don't want bark-based or anything, or compost. Also, because they have long canes, a lot of people feel they need to put them in a bigger pot but the problem with this is that it's not often easy to keep it very dry during its rest period. So if need be, for weight, you could put a couple of pebbles in the pot but the best way is, every time you repot, just slightly. at best the next size up in terms of pot, so the next size pot only. I know it looks a little bit too big for its pot but that's what it needs to do and just bark which will enable the grower to keep it on the very dry side during its rest period.

Jane: Watering these orchids, is there any special requirement here?

Manos: During its growing phase, you keep it moist but not overly wet. You can use hard water if it's easy, but it's good from time to time to use rain water. Always water at lukewarm temperatures and when there's new canes, towards the end of the growing season, when the new canes have reached the height of the old canes, then you keep it on the very dry side. Very little water from time to time, or heavy misting so it doesn't get bone dry, until you see new buds appearing on the new canes. The new canes are also good to be staked, to be supported, otherwise they can just fall over, or they can grow not straight.

Jane: Okay, that makes sense. Well that's helped me also because I've got a couple of little keikis on my Dendrobiumwhich, I have to say, I've already removed without checking what I was supposed to do, but I've removed them and they're in a glass of water at the minute so I must pot those up. They're quite small but they have got decent roots on them so they can just go into one new pot with some orchid bark and hopefully they'll go on from there?

Manos: Yes. The difference with the Phalaenopsis keikis, you can just snap them off the cane of the Dendrobiumm rather than having to cut off a little bit of the stem as you would have to do with the Phalaenopsis, then yes, two or three together, put them on a very small pot, like a nine centimetre in bark, not too much watering to start off with and then you'll have a new plant.

Jane: What about this worry that lots of people have that they have to put their orchids in see-through pots, is that true? They seem to come from the nursery in a see-through pot, do we need to look for a see-through pot or are opaque ones okay?

Manos: Very good question, a clear pot is good because you see the root system, the roots photosynthesise, especially in the case of Phalaenopsis, a clear pot all else equal is a good thing. I use clear pots not only for orchids for other plants as well because I can see the roots but it is not necessary to grow orchids. What is essential in a pot regarding orchids is that it has good drainage, it has plenty of holes for it to drain because orchids, especially Phalaenopsis, need to drain and dry well between waterings. The other thing also, which is the secret, which is key, is an air dome. If a clear pot especially has a dome, it is definitely made for orchids because no other plant needs that kind of special pot. There are clear pots on the market which, frankly, are not good for orchids because they don't have good drainage. As long as the pot has very good drainage and a lot of big holes at the bottom, it's good for orchids, but all is equal, clear is better, because you can also see the root system and the roots can photosynthesise.

Jane: What you're saying when you talk about the dome, is that the bottom of the pot isn't flat, it's got a raised section which presumably increases surface area for more air coming in?

Manos: The many holes at the bottom of the pot give it very good drainage. The dome is mostly for aeration. The centre of the root, if you think about it, is basically an inch or an inch-and-a-half from the air. Whereas in a normal pot it's two or two-and-a-half inches away from air.

Jane: That's so interesting. Well, I've learned loads about Dendrobiums, Manos, that's really, really handy and I'm sure that Giskin will be grateful for that advice. They've always been a bit of a mystery to me, I have to say, orchids. I'm slowly learning but I'm afraid I've rather disfigured my original plant by cutting off the stem so soon. So, I think I'm going to have to rely on my newly removed keikis to provide the next generation that will look a bit nicer.

Manos: Excellent.

[music]

Jane: The weather is gorgeous and I'm off down to the shed to do some watering and some potting. Are you going to come with me, Wolf? Good dog. Off we go.

[Soundscape]

Jane: Time to stop recording and go and have some lunch. I'll see you next week, On The Ledge fans. Bye! (Hello, Wolfie!)

[music]

Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day, Gokarna by Samuel Corwin, Chiefs by Jahzzar and I Snost, I Lost by Doctor Turtle. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit janeperrone.com for details.

Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.

View fullsize

Wolfie. Photograph: Jane Perrone

Want to know more about On The Ledge mascot Wolfie? Your wait is over. Plus I chat to orchid expert Manos Kanellos to answer a Dendrobium question, we hear form listener Gabby and you can hear me pottering in my shed in a new soundscape.

• This Sunday (May 10 2020) is Garden Day! A chance to celebrate our gardens, indoors and out. Find out more about Garden Day here.

• If you want to post about your dog on Houseplant Fans of the Ledge, the thread is here.

• Never heard of a lurcher? There’s more info here and an honest view from an owner here. Bedlington terriers are explained here.

• If you are interested in finding out more about the Cinnamon Trust, their website is here.

• My potting shed is half shed, half greenhouse with a half-glazed roof. I’ll put up some more images of it on my Facebook page.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Listener Giskin got in touch about an issue with her Dendrobium orchid…

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Giskin’s Dendrobium.

“I am unsure about how to handle my dendrobium (pics attached). I got it a couple of years ago and it has been a joy – flowering profusely for the first 18 months or so. It has also doubled in size. When it arrived, it had quite a few ‘stumps’ which made me think it had been divided or cut back. With my other orchids, I know to prune flowering stems back to the next node after flowering, but I wondered whether my dendro needed something similar? And should I be dividing at those rooting branchlets at the base?”

I am no orchid expert, so I called on Dr Manos Kanellos to help. He is co-author of book Growing Orchids at Home along with Peter White.

Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!

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If you like the idea of supporting On The Ledge on a regular basis but don't know what Patreon's all about, check out the FAQ here: if you still have questions, leave a comment or email me - ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. If you're already supporting others via Patreon, just click here to set up your rewards!

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CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops,  An Instrument the Boy Called Happy Day, Gokarna by Samuel Corwin, Chiefs by Jahzzar and I Snost, I Lost by Doctor Turtle 

Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.